The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (25 page)

Simnel shouted with satisfaction and followed up, punching and swinging a haymaker. Perkin's head rolled aside with one punch, but he surged up inside the haymaker, a knife glinting in his hand. "That's just a little bit too much," Matt said, and stepped in to catch Perkin's arm, twisting the knife out of his hand. "No steel! " "What business is it of yours?" bellowed a voice behind him, and a rough hand yanked his shoulder, spinning him around just in time to see the fist that cracked into his jaw. Matt sank to his knees as the world went dark for several seconds, shot with sparks. He shook his head and staggered up, vision returning just in time to see his at-tacker pull a knife from his boot.

The blade came in low. Matt dodged, and the thrust went short. Then Matt jumped in to try to catch the knife arm, but the attacker was too fast for him-he pulled the blade back, then slashed. Matt leaped back just enough to let it swing past him as he drew his own dagger.

Crowd voices shouted with excitement, but he blocked them out and concentrated only on his antagonist. Matt saw the man's eyes flick downward, to his own knife, and he slammed a kick at the el-bow. The man shouted as he leaped back, then lunged with a speed that caught Matt off balance. Matt managed to twist enough so that the knife only grazed his side; he heard the cloth tear, and the searing pain made him suddenly realize that the thug was very, very serious. He wasn't just out to even the odds in an entertaining fight over a woman-he was out to kill Matt!

What had he ever done to him? They were total strangers!

He brushed the thought aside-all that mattered now was staying alive. Could a peasant knife artist really bring down a belted knight?

He could, Matt saw in the next two passes.

The man's skill was just too great; he had to be a pro. What was he doing here, at a road-side inn near a rural village?

File the fact for later. For now, leap back from that blade, draw him into lunging, then lunging again, then again and again ... Finally the attacker lunged just that much too far, off balance for just half a second, and Matt whirled in, catching the knife arm in an elbow lock and pushing down. The man howled with the sudden pain, and his knife dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers. The crowd shouted with delight, but Matt just spun back in, set his blade against the man's throat and growled, "Who paid you to kill me?" "None!" the man blustered. "None needed to, when you butted into a fight that was none of your-" The sentence choked off in a rattle of pain as Matt hit a nerve center. "Nay, no more! I'll tell! The man who paid me was-" Then, suddenly, his eyes rolled up and he crumpled to the ground. The crowd cheered, and half a dozen men surged in to lift Matt up on . their shoulders. Matt held on, their clamor ringing in his ears w e e let the sudden numbness within him fade. When they set him down inside the tavern and thrust a mug into his hand, he faked laughter and sipped a little, nodding thanks for their shouted compliments, then started a drinking song. In a few minutes the men were all swinging their tankards in time to the music and bawling the chorus, leaving Matt free to welter in morose remorse.

Why? Well, the peasant who burst in the door said it best.

"He is dead!"

The whole room went instantly silent. Matt froze.

Then Forla asked, in a trembling voice, "Who?"

"Simnel," the man cried, and Forla burst into tears, wailing, "Oh, my love! To have found you so late, and lost you so soon!"

"Be still, woman!" her husband snarled as he staggered in the door. His face was a mass of bruises, and blood trickled from a cut on one cheek, but he lurched toward her, lips drawing back in a snarl. She saw him coming and screamed.

Then a man in a fur-collared velvet robe strode in the door. A gold chain held a medallion over his breast, and his gray hair and lined face made him look all the more stern as he pointed at Perkin and shouted, "Seize him! A dozen men leaped to obey with shouts of glee.

"Who is this guy?" Matt muttered to Pascal.

"The local reeve, by the look of him," the youth answered.

"Some-one with more sense than blood lust must have gone to fetch him." The reeve stepped over to the biggest table in the room and sat himself down majestically. "The court is now convened! Who will serve as jury?"

There was an instant clamor of eager willingness, and hands waved

to volunteer.

"You, you, you . . ." The reeve picked his jury by pointing at them one by one, until he had twelve good men and true.

Well, twelve men, anyway. out of the corner of his eye Matt noticed Forla edging toward the door, then slipping out. The reeve may not have known how the case was going to come out, but she sure did. On the other hand, the reeve probably had made up his mind be-fore the trial, to judge by the way he ran it.

"Perkin, husband of Forla!" he snapped, pointing at the cuckolded husband. "You are charged with the killing of Simnel, of your own village!"

"He had cuckolded me! " Perkin cried. "He had bedded my wife!

"Then you admit to killing him?"

"I had every right!"

"Did you kill him? Yes or no!"

"Yes!" Perkin shouted. "As I would kill any man who laid a hand

upon her! Do you tell me I am wrong?

"Do you tell him he is wrong?" the reeve demanded of the jury. The twelve men put their heads together for a quick, muttered conference, then turned back to the judge. The tallest said, "He was right

to kill Simnel. It was adultery."

"The killing was justified!" The reeve slapped his hand on the table. "Set him free!"

The men holding Perkin stepped back, letting go, and the cuckolded husband stood looking about him, rubbing his arms where they had gripped him, looking dazed. Then fire lit his eye and he demanded, "Where is she? Where is my faithless wife?

Where is Forla? " The whole room went silent. Then the men began to mutter to one another, concerned but excited, and the women exchanged uneasy glances.

"Where is she?" Perkin shouted.

"They can't think it's right to let him kill her, too!" Matt protested.

"I think not," said Pascal, "but they shall not mind if he beats her sorely." He was very pale.

"Where is she?" Perkin bellowed at the women. "You know, do you not? Tell me where!"

They rocked in the blast of his rage, but the stoutest woman said, with determination, "We know not where she is fled-but fled she has, and the more fool she if she has not!"

Perkin snarled and raised a hand, but the reeve thundered, "Nay!

This one is not yours to abuse!"

Perkin cast an uneasy glance at him, then turned and bolted out into the night, bellowing, "Forla! Where are you, Forla? You may as well come forth, for I shall find you soon or late! " "Come on," Matt said urgently, and led Pascal toward the door. But a matron stopped him with a hand on his arm to say, "Do not fear for Forla, minstrel. You are a good man, and no doubt seek to save her, as you sought to save Simnel-but you need not. Where she has gone, no man can follow."

Matt wasn't sure what she was referring to, but it did reassure him. "Thanks. I need to be going anyway, though. Good night, goodwife." She flushed. "Good woman ' rather! Though I was a good wife in-deed, till my husband fled." Then anxiety creased her face.

"Do not follow Perkin-for he is maddened now and might strike you down without knowing what he did!"

"I'll stay out of his way," Matt promised. He patted her hand.

"By the way, what do you think the jury would have decided if it had been the other way around-if Simnel had killed Perkin?

If the adulterer had killed the husband?"

"'Simnel would have been outlawed," she said grimly, "with his life forfeit to anyone who wished to kill him, for revenge or for pleasure, or for any reason at all."

Pascal blanched dead white.

The woman noticed and scowled at him. "Are you an adulterer, too?" "Not yet," Pascal answered, "and I think not ever-now. As they slipped out the door, Matt said, "Wise decision, if running away with Panegyra, or even officially kidnapping her, would give her fiance grounds to kill you out of hand, and the local reeve and jury would virtually ignore it."

"It does seem the wisest course," Pascal agreed. "Do you think they would do that to me even if we eloped before she married him?" "I don't doubt it for a second," Matt assured him. "In fact, even without having done anything, I think we'd better go, and go fast!" Pascal glanced at him in surprise, saw the grimness there, and hurried down the path toward the main road with him.

As they came out onto the highway, Pascal asked, "Shall we not wait for our fellow travelers?"

"Yes," Matt said, "five miles down the road. Then we'll let them

catch up - " "Why the haste to go so quickly now?"

"Because that man I fought is dead," Matt said, "and I don't want to be around when the locals discover it."

Pascal's eyes went wide and frightened. Then he turned away, paying serious attention to making speed. "They will be after you with the reeve and all his men!"

"I don't think so," Matt said. "I don't think any of them will even recognize him-I'm pretty sure he's from out of town."

"Why?" Pascal was getting very used to staring.

"Because he was a professional assassin-I could tell by his style." "Oh! Then you killed him because if you did not, he would have

killed you!

"No."

"Then why?"

"I didn't kill him at all," Matt explained. "I forced him to tell me who had hired him to kill me-but before he could talk, he died."

"Sorcery!" Pascal gasped.

"That was my guess, too. You might want to find a different traveling companion, Pascal. Almost anybody would be safer." The young man didn't answer for several minutes; he only hurried along, watching the road and keeping pace with Matt. When he did speak, it was only to say, "I must think over my future again." "Yes," Matt agreed. "That might be wise."

"Hell and damnation!" Rebozo swore. "Can you not find a single assassin who is competent?"

The secretary cowered away from his master's anger-Rebozo was, after all, a sorcerer, and a powerful one. Now was not the time to re-mind him that, so far, he had chosen all the assassins himself.

"First that fool of a knightling in Merovence, then that debacle of a manticore, followed by a ghost who proved to be as easy to bribe as any clerk-and now this! Two tavern brawls in a row, and neither slays him?

Are your assassins all fools and oxen, or is this wizard of Merovence proof against any assault?"

The secretary grasped at the last phrase. "Perhaps, Lord Chancellor. He is, after all, Queen Alisande's Lord Wizard-and her husband. Perhaps he is invulnerable to all but the mightiest spells."

"Yes, perhaps he is." Rebozo calmed with amazing speed, gazing Off into space. "Her wizard-and her husband! All, if we could capture and hold him, we could bring that proud queen to her knees, and all of Merovence with her, at our mercy! I1

The secretary shivered at the audacity of it-and the danger.

"How could we hold so mighty a wizard?"

"With sorcery," Rebozo told him, "sorcery of the foulest sort. The king might have to join with me in such an effort, if the wizard proves too much for me alone-but we shall attempt it!

Send word to that chowder-headed reeve that he has tried the wrong man! Bid him arrest this wizard for the murder of your agent!"

"It shall be done, Lord Chancellor." LoClercchi scribbled out a quick note, then passed it to Rebozo, who sealed itcarefully not signing it-then worked his magic over it until it disappeared in a flash. He leaned back and nodded, satisfied.

"The note shall appear by him, no matter where he may be. He shall lead forth his men to capture and hold that wizard forthwith!

If all goes well, he will be in our power by dawn! I1

But the secretary knew better than to think all would go well-at least, if the minstrel really was Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence. And if he was, it might be better if they did not capture him-for rather than ransom him by money or deed, Queen Alisande might very well march south against Latruria, with all her armies be-hind her. The secretary found himself wondering if King Boncorro was really ready for a war.

Alisande was ready for a war, and growing more ready with each passing minute. The only problem was that so far, she had no one to fight. Of course, they were still in her own country ... As they rode, peasants working in the fields looked up to see the marching army and the silver figure at its head with the glitter of sun-light on her crown. They shouted to one another and came running, to cheer their queen and bow as she passed. No one rode out to command them, none forced them-they came to catch a glimpse of her of their own free will. Alisande's heart expanded within her at the sincerity of their devotion. Perhaps she was doing right by them, after all. She turned to watch them straggling back to their work as the vanguard passed ...

... and saw a flutter of wings beating upward, a bird launching it-self into the sky.

Launching itself? Surely not! It sprang up too smartly for that,

lofted too high as it was still unfurling its wings. Was some loyal peasant releasing his tame pigeon to honor her?

A crossbow quarrel sprang up to meet the bird-sprang up from her own army, behind her, and a soldier broke ranks to run and catch the tumbling, bloody ball of feathers as it fell from the sky!

Alisande stared, outraged, frozen by the sudden, callous stroke. Then anger broke loose. "Bring me that man!" The soldiers looked up, startled, then amazed by their queen's wrath. Red with anger they might have understood-but pale with rage?

Over so little a thing as a pigeon?

A squadron hustled the luckless crossbowman out of the field and up to the queen, where he stood like the Ancient Mariner with a very small albatross, while his queen sat fuming above him.

"For shame, sirrah! " she cried. "Are you so starved that you must seize upon every tiniest scrap of meat? For surely, one pigeon cannot in ake a pie! Do I feed you so poorly that you must devour every feather that floats by? is there not enough food in my wagons to feed an arm y, that you must seek your own provisions from the countryside? " It was her tone that did it, more than the words-the sheer icy rage that daunted the crossbowman and made his hands tremble. Again and again he tried to protest, but he was so terrified that no words came. "Royal rage" was no empty phrase, not now!